He brought me out into the hall, I could have sworn it was haunted (OTA)

[saltwaterlungs]

CHARACTERS: Darcy, Erin, and you?
DATE: Mid-october
LOCATION: Sports deck, Drunken Sailor, Life boats
SITUATION: Darcy’s no good very bad hell cruise
WARNINGS: Shit’s probably going to get dark here folks. CWs for underaged drinking and suicidal ideation at the least.

To hear that there was nothing that I could do to save you (Erin)

The fight club following Darcy’s talk with Skulduggery is… distinctly less enthusiastic than the previous iterations. Erin will find Darcy sat over by the training sabres, rumpled like she’s slept in her clothes. She’s keeping an eye on the rest of the club over folded arms resting on her knees, and she barely looks up when Erin approaches.

The choir's gonna sing and then this thing is gonna kill you

Friday apparently isn’t checking up on anyone sneaking drinks when they’re not meant to. Of course, initially Darcy wasn’t going to try and drink her problems away like she was in a fucking country song. It had just made her sad the one time she’d tried it with Izzy. But after a couple of days of a mess of feelings that she feels entirely unequipped to deal with, Darcy kind of wants to just deal with sad. It’s not like she can talk to anyone about one of her most important relationships aboard the ship utterly imploding. Once again, she is alone in her burdens.

Find her curled up in one of the comfy chairs of the Drunken Sailor with a bottle of rum, headphones in, avoiding everyone.

Something in my throat made my next words shake

Even being on the ship gets too claustrophobic eventually. Like all the secrets she’s been forced to keep will come spilling out of her at the slightest provocation. She can’t bring herself to try and help the aimless newbies, she can’t hunt the Bahamanal in the newly-halloween-ified Tommy Bahama, she can’t drag herself to training. Eventually she packs the backpack she got from camp with some changes of clothes and whatever she can find in the buffet that seems like it’ll keep for a couple of days. And then, she sets herself to stealing one of the life boats.

Stop her or help her, if you want.

And something in the wires made the light bulbs break (wildcard)

(go nuts, show nuts, whatever)

Comments

[goodweather]

"Sure."

He doesn't move.

[saltwaterlungs]

"I'll throw you off this fucking boat, I can do it," she snaps, burning in her throat.

"I can't fucking do this. Fuck off."

She'll start winding the mechanism to draw the boat back up. Because she is, of course, full of shit.

cw: suicidal ideation

[goodweather]

I've thought about it before, so why don't you do us both the favor, is the petty, acidic comeback that he strangles in his throat. Instead:

"Then don't."

And: "If there's something new, you should put it with the binder," spoken like someone who knows with certainty that that's not what this is about.

cw: suicidal ideation

[saltwaterlungs]

Darcy screams in frustration, taking a moment to pace the boat and decide whether or not she wants to throw herself off.

"No. I can't- fucking- nobody asked you! Nobody fucking asked you to swoop in and try and fucking save me, I- ugh!"

She goes back to winching them up with a renewed vigour.

cw continues

[goodweather]

“Saving you? So that’s what I’m doing?”

Phil fixes her with a stare. Not a look, a stare. “Yeah, nobody fucking asked me. Nobody fucking asked me if I wanted these wings or if I wanted to be on this stupid boat or if I wanted to leave Punx, and no one asked you to go chase the Captain or stab ghosts or grab me off of the back of that truck. The only reason I didn’t jump off and save everybody the trouble was because I was holding your blonde friend’s fancy sword, so thank him for that.

“Sorry, Darts, I’m a selfish asshole, and you did a pretty good job of making people care. If you want to go hit the barrier and stay there, fine. At least there’s something you have control over, right? But when you wake up the next morning it’s not going to make you feel better. It’s a shitty hangover. All you’ll have is a new memory of watching yourself die, and that stuff’s useless.”

There’s a lot of self control, healing, and various pragmatic reasons that goes into why Phil hasn’t just plunged yet, but that’s definitely one of them—the basic fact that all it is is a useless inconvenience in the end that doesn’t even make him feel better, so he may as well go do something that will instead.

Re: cw continues

[saltwaterlungs]

"Shut up!" she screeches, squeezing her eyes shut so she doesn't have to look at him.

"You- what do you want from me?" Darcy pleads, her heart in her throat, leaning her forehead against the ship again.

"I'm not killing myself. I just want some time away from this fucking boat. That's it. I can't fucking handle this. I can't. I didn't- I never wanted anyone to care about me, I'm not doing this on fucking purpose, just-" her grip is still tight on the mechanism but she can't will her muscles to move any further.

[goodweather]

Some people might like to call him steadfast. Phil is pretty sure he’s just a jerk. He keeps going anyway.

“What I want is to know why you’re packing bags alone in a boat that is maybe going to catch back up to a full size cruise liner once it hits the water, on an ocean we know is empty with an invisible wall around us. Because at first I thought maybe there was some new boat world crap I hadn’t heard of. If you’re just going to sit out there, fine, that's--" he pauses, quiets, "--fine. That's reasonable. But I hope that you know someone who can come and get you if you can't get back.”

Subtext: because I can't. Because ten miles out, Phil is one of the only people here with the eyes and ears to detect out that far on flat open ocean, and if she has regrets, he wouldn't be able to do jack shit about it. Call that flying skeleton, maybe, but he doesn't even know how to get a hold of the guy.

[saltwaterlungs]

"...the ship doesn't go anywhere. Other people without powers have been able to get back up onto the ship without needing help. I just. Need to be away from people. Everyone fucking sucks including me and I can't deal with anyone right now."

Her voice is a little blown out from screeching at him, and already she's ashamed from yelling at him. It's a already a repeating theme and it feels like a blow she can never seem to parry, managing her own fucking temper.

"Were you really going to- off the rover-" she chokes a little, forcing herself to keep winching them up, "I would've followed you. You have to know that I would've."

[goodweather]

He stops. God, he hates an argument. He hates how easily it gets him to run his mouth, and how half of it is just being an asshole and assuming shit of people, and the other half is saying shit that didn’t need to be flown. Phil dials back, like a fox with its ears pinned to its head.

“I was hoping you couldn’t,” meaning of course I did. “I thought maybe things were moving too fast for you to follow me. You were slipping. There wasn’t any point for both of us to go down.”

He hates an argument, and of course, he has to argue anyway. The least he can do for it is be honest.

Cws continuing

[saltwaterlungs]

"Not any point to- oh fuck you. Fuck you, Phil. God you're such a dick- oh just fucking follow me down here like such a fucking hero to stop me fucking killing myself but you- UGH-"

Just going to put all this bubbling rage into winching them both up now.

"You know why you followed me down here, and I'm pretty fucking sure you can just apply that to why I was going to go down after you. You don't get to just fucking throw your life away and apparently neither do I."

[goodweather]

“That—! That was different, Darcy, it’s not like I meant to be pulled down the back of the truck, and it wasn’t—“

Like a cord violently unplugged when he stops. Because he realizes halfway through that the point she’s making isn’t the one he’s responding to, and he’s an asshole, again, and he’s hypocritical and assumptive and he hates this. And she’s right. Because of course she is. Because she’s still better than him in certain ways that he still hasn’t caught up with in decades,

At least the response is easy.

“—I’m sorry.” He looks straight past her. Whatever else he might’ve had to say, it doesn’t matter. All the fight’s left him. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

[saltwaterlungs]

Her own anger fizzles at the extinguishing of his. Like it usually does. Darcy's never angrier than when she's butting up against someone else's rage.

"Thank you."

They're finally back at the top now, and Darcy goes to grab her shit. Evidently she's disembarking, too.

[goodweather]

Phil is startled to see her haul her bag out, having fully expected her to stay. He doesn’t know what he would have done about it. The easy answer is “not leave.” He doesn’t know that it’s the right one—christ, listen to him, since when was it not? But.

He stands slowly and disembarks slowly too. Not because he’s waiting for her to jump in again, which he would be within his right to expect. He’s just thinking.

He says, “You don’t have to tell me why. But you can. Maybe not now, or later, or, I don’t know, never. I just…”

Wasn’t going to let you go without a fight.

He shakes his head, the words from his tongue. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave you alone.” The olive branch: “You know where to find me.”

Unless she stops him, Phil turns and walks away.

[saltwaterlungs]

"No, Phil, I really can't," it's quiet and not as petulant as usual. She doesn't pursue him. The fact is, the knowledge she has been cursed with is hers to bear alone, along with the consequences of it.

The thought of being able to talk it over with him, the quiet calm and space he gives her to bitch and work through what she's feeling, makes her heart ache. It's not fair. God protect her from what she wants.

She leaves the boat behind, reminded once more that her life is not her own.